The Florida Sunshine state lived up to its name, at least at southwest Jacksonville’s 103^rd Street Sports complex for the 2nd annual VKA Vintage Ice Breaker, with temperatures in the high 70’s and low 80’s for the entire event.  Many vintage karters arrived Wednesday to get their pit spots set up, and continued throughout the day Thursday.  A big thank you to the NFKC & GSKA workers for a well-run event!  A special thanks to Tommy Hinson who served as the main flagman and safety tech inspector for throughout the weekend.  Thank you to all the Vintage Karters with 57 entries participating at this event.

After a round of safety tech inspections Thursday morning, the track was opened for open practice at 10:30.  There was a slight delay due to one of those freak occurrences of locking the track keys in the camper- sorry Lynne but remember you have been forgiven!  Lynne Brown (NFKC) was also a huge help keeping things running smooth throughout the weekend.  We started with open practice for all senior drivers (40 minute session with a max of 10 karts on the track at a time). The junior drivers (2 entries) were then allotted a (10) minute practice session followed again by the senior drivers.  We repeated this order throughout the day and closed the track for practice at 5:30 pm.  I am very encouraged that the VKA has agreed to sponsor the junior drivers with a reimbursed entry fee to the promoters (the junior drivers are responsible for their wrist band and meal ticket fees, the VKA reimburses the promoters for the difference).

Friday, we opened the track at 9:00 am and resumed practice.  After lunch, we called all drivers and pit crews to the drivers meeting congratulating the drivers on their respectful driving during all practice sessions and encourage them to do so during the demonstrations/ Heats as well emphasizing safety-safety-safety!  We had 17 VKA classes represented and by grouping some of the classes together we were able to run all classes in 10 groups.  We completed two heat demonstrations Friday afternoon and by 6:00 pm then pizza was provided by GSKA & NFKC to all the vintage karters and crewmembers.  

Tony Severino and his team of judges got the kart show judging activity going at 9:00 a.m. Saturday morning at the starting grid. Although we had had only nine karts entered in the show, these were some beautiful machines.  The Kart Show awards were presented a little after 10:00 we then opened the track for 30 minutes of practice.  We called a quick drivers meeting, prayed, we started the third round of heat races before lunch.  We completed the third round of heat races before 2:00 pm., then presented the awards for the demonstrations and finished by 3:00 p.m.